Panflute

I'm interested.

There's currently 2 characters you can recruit, but they stated that they'll add more in the future. They have set personalities and you can improve your rapport with them by doing stuff they like while questing with them. For example, one of them hates goblins, so she will appreciate you more if you kill goblins. You can improve their combat abilities just by adventuring with them, and you can assign them to be a healer, a tank or a damage dealer. They can't exactly replace a good player, but they still make stuff like solo'ing group dungeons easier. Their personalities/looks are set, but you can still craft them a custom outfit or assign them a costume that you own. You can also choose which mount they use.

Server issues mostly manifest themselves in endgame content, so PVP (Cyrodiil particularly) and trials. If you just want to quest, you won't experience many issues aside from the occasional downtime. They added NPC Companions with the most recent chapter, so solo play has become more viable than ever.

I didn't run into that many bugs tbh.

I got about 10 hours in and the game has some truly stunning, groundbreaking moments, but as a whole it just doesn't have that x factor that keeps me playing. Somehow I feel like the RPG-type gameplay doesn't really gel well with the story. Feels like it should be a pure action game.

Yes, I am. I mostly play PVP these days. The game is very fun but server performance around prime time leaves something to be desired.

Pre-ordered Mass Effect Legendary Edition!

Whelp, we had elections again in the Netherlands and somehow our prime minister's party got even more votes than during the previous elections, numerous scandals notwithstanding.

We went into our first full lockdown today. Merry Christmas.

It expired

Can't decide if I'm more annoyed by the people completely ignoring corona guidelines or the ones who secretly film it so they can narc on them for internet coolpoints.

As I have said earlier, all this virus does is revert countries to their basic essence. Holland has reverted to finding compromises for everything (polder model) The US has reverted to its usual dose of crazy paired with societal division France has reverted to its leader getting to roleplay as a firm Napoleonic statesman over the backs of his countrymen Italy and Spain have reverted to criticizing us for 'mishandling' the crisis and then asking us for free hand-outs as the bodies pile up and their entire economies inevitably collapse at the slightest setback It's depressing.

It's pretty fucked now. We have had rising infection rates, but people have pretty much gone into panic mode, where like 3 days after new measures, everyone starts calling for more measures even though it's impossible to notice the effect of the original measures within that timespan. If we were to go into full lockdown, it would be the first time this happens in the country, as the previous 'lockdown' and the current one have both been partial lockdowns, where much of the measures were based on advice rather than strict legislation. Still, I don't think it will ever be in countries like France and Italy where you basically have martial law. However, as it looks now, it seems as if the full lockdown is not being considered by our government, which, to its credit, doesn't often cave to the pressure of taking extra measures just because people are panicking. The issue with a full lockdown now is that it would just postpone the problem a few months at best, and wreck tons of businesses in the process. The past months have shown that our testing has not proven adequate enough to be able to handle subsequent infections locally, so this would mean having to lock the country down periodically until there is a vaccine, which is obviously bonkers. I dunno about this shit anymore. When I see people out there walking by themselves in parks while wearing mouth masks, I get the idea that a lot of this is just about giving ourselves the illusion that we're able to control the virus.

We might go into full lockdown as well seeing as journos have been pushing for it in the past weeks by aSkiNg QuEsTiOnS. Critics say such a measure will only be effective if it is kept up for months, possibly until the spring. Fun times ahead in any case.